The Dragon Evolves: Is the Social Market Economy a Chimaera?
Maktoba Omar and Morrison Handley-Schachler
Napier University Business School
Abstract
An earlier study by Deng and Dart (1999) shed a great deal of light on the unfolding
dynamics of market orientation, searching out a range of macro-marketing concerns
that may significantly impact the adjustment process to a market orientation.
Market orientation for many organisations is a conceptual premise demanding change.
This applies with particular force to organisations in transition economies, especially
those that have to cope with the challenges imposed by the cultural rite of passage
from political-based market governance to competitive market systems. The
marketing mantra, market orientation, is routinely offered as the basis for business
success. While the sincerity of this principle is in little doubt in most developed
western economies, implementation in many transition-economy contexts is revealing
a range of paradoxes. This paper using China as an example, offers initial
observations on the degree to which local companies are adopting a market
orientation. Although some of the early results are consistent with those obtained in
the West, there is an underlying lacuna that needs to be addressed by offering culturespecific interpretations of localised events. To plug this gap, the paper argues for an
approach that accommodates the institutional background, focusing on the temporal,
spatial and wider socio-cultural and historical characteristics of marketing itself.
Correspondence Address:
Maktoba Omar
Napier University Business School,
New Craig,
Edinburgh
EH10 5LG
Tel:
0131-455- 5043or 0131-455-4404